


il sogno

by orphan_account



Series: The Scythian [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy is not suicidal just reckless, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams, F/F, Memories, a telepathic bond, but Nile basically accuses her at one point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25943566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You love her.”It’s not a question, but a statement, said with more certainty than Nile was sure that she felt. The way that Nicky was looking at her almost seemed to suggest that he had been able to pluck the feeling from her head and interpret it for himself without her needing to respond.“What makes you say that?”“Because the way that you look at her, that’s the way that I look at Joe.”Nile folded her hands carefully on the table and let out a sigh.“It’s more complicated than that. I think I have Quynh’s memories."
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: The Scythian [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884241
Comments: 11
Kudos: 116





	il sogno

Andy’s mortality hadn’t changed anything in terms of the group dynamics. Joe and Nicky still called her Boss. She still insisted that they take jobs. And she was still as stubborn as ever. When Nile tried to patch her up after an arms' dealer in Budapest had stabbed her, Andy had waved her off, muttering something about how she didn’t trust modern medicine.

“She’s just saying that so you’ll leave her alone,” Nicky supplied as Andy stalked off to another room in the safe house.

“I don’t get it,” Nile admitted, massaging her temples. “She knows she can die now. We’re a family, aren’t we supposed to be helping each other?”

Joe--who truthfully was never more than an arm’s length away from Nicky, it seemed--reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “The Boss has to sort out what that means for herself. True death has not been a possibility for a long time for her.”

-

That night, Nile dreamed of the steel coffin underwater again, rage and fear pulsing through her veins as she died, over and over and over.

-

Andy came closer to true death than either Joe or Nicky were willing to admit, Nile thought. They’d gone down to Tegucigalpa on another job, this time to eliminate a gang that had taken root in the city center.

Andy was a warrior at heart and in the truest sense of the word, Nile thought. Not a soldier, a warrior that could wield a hundred pound battle axe with the elegance of a ballerina and the utter determination of someone who did not fear death.

But maybe that was just habit. When you know death isn’t coming for you, it’s easy not to be afraid of it.

Nile had grown up shooting guns, and she felt infinitely safer using them than the sword or scimtar that Nicky and Joe often opted for. Nor did she trust herself to move in-between bullets without knowing that she could shoot back.

Andy’s speed and dexterity was usually enough to avoid any bullet, but when one embedded itself in her thigh, she went down quickly. “Ugh, motherfucker,” she wheezed, squeezing her eyes shut.

Nile shot the man who had shot Andy between the eyes, before she leaned down and examined the wound. “It doesn’t look that deep, maybe--”

Andy clamored to her feet. “I’m fine.”

There was a dark patch of blood seeping through her pants, which made Nile narrow her eyes at her. “Fine, be a stubborn motherfucker.”

-

Later that night, holed up in a safe house in San Pedro Sula, Andy excused herself to another room to wrap a bandage around her leg.

“She’s going to die if she’s not careful,” Nile whispered in a hushed tone to Nicky and Joe.

Joe and Nicky exchanged a look and both shook their heads.

Nile raised an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe spell it out for me since I haven’t known either of you long enough to know what that meant.”

Nicky said something in rapid Italian that made Joe laugh.

“Andy knows what she can handle,” Nicky explained simply, but Nile still quirked an eyebrow at both of them.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what you said, but okay.”

Nile made a note to herself to learn Italian as soon as possible.

-

That night, she dreamt that she was beside Andy as they both were hanged to death.  
Only, neither of them could die.

Every time they hit death, they clawed their way back to life, over and over again.

-

Andy knew what she could handle when she knew she was unbreakable, Nile thought. She still moved like she didn’t fear death in a fight. But she wasn’t invisible to death anymore. It could find her and take her just like anyone else who hadn’t lived nearly as long as she had.

Sometimes, Nile would lay awake on one of the mattresses in the safe house and try to piece together a guess of how old Andy might be. She’d seen the timeline in Copley’s office, the expanse of time and places where Andy had been alive. But the images were only two hundred years old, and even Nicky and Joe were older than that. The written references were older, but those had to be harder to find, right? What about a time when nothing was being written down and recorded?

That seemed a bit too far of a guess. Nile bit her lip. Now she was really wishing that she had kept her phone, if only so that she could start googling her guesses.

-

When she closed her eyes, she dreamt of Andy’s smile in a jail cell, burning bright in the darkness.

-

In Bangkok, Andy got stabbed again. It wasn’t very deep, but the fact that Joe and Nicky and even Andy didn’t seem as worried as she was made her angry. More angry than she’d been when her Sergeant had tried to send her home.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think you had some kind of death wish, because you won’t even let us help you when you get hurt!”

“I’m not hurt,” Andy bit out as she wrapped a bandage around her forearm. “He barely grazed me.”

“Yeah? Because you had a knife sticking out of you, so it sure looked like it did to me. You got one life left, and you keep acting like you want some drug dealer or gang member asshole in wherever the hell to fucking kill you!”

Joe and Nicky exchanged a look and both frowned. Andy narrowed her eyes at her. “You know what, I’m done. I don’t have to listen to someone whose great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents weren’t even alive before I was born.”

Andy said each ‘great’ with an increasing amount of venom, before she stormed off and slammed the door to the bedroom behind her.

“Fine!” Nile called after her.

-

That night, Nile stood above a man named Lykon--gasping wet and hot as he died, Andy close to tears. “He couldn’t die. We’re not supposed to die,” she babbled over and over again.

-

Nile found herself watching Andy more intently--not just on every job, but when they were together in whatever safe house in whatever part of the world they were in this week.

She found herself wondering how long Andy had had short hair, and what she had looked like a hundred years ago--what she had looked like before she’d died the first time. She wondered how many memories of hers were truly lost like she claimed; she wondered what it had been like to traverse the world with no end to life in sight; and she wondered if she’d ever been in love.

-

That night, she got the answer to her own question–a dream where she’d chased Andy into the woods and kissed her, smiling and laughing and shushing her with, “If they catch us here, they’ll lock us both up, and it’s so boring to have to keep escaping.”

-

“You love her.”

It’s not a question, but a statement, said with more certainty than Nile was sure that she felt. The way that Nicky was looking at her almost seemed to suggest that he had been able to pluck the feeling from her head and interpret it for himself without her needing to respond.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because the way that you look at her, that’s the way that I look at Joe.”

Nile folded her hands carefully on the table and let out a sigh.

“It’s more complicated than that. I think I have Quynh’s memories. Does that happen? Like....can you guys remember things that didn’t happen to you?”

Nicky looked over at Joe and asked him something in Italian. Joe shook his head, laughed and then said something back.

“English guys, English,” Nile grumbled.

Nicky licked his lips. “Uh, no. We share the dreams, but the dreams are...like a beacon. After we find each other, they stop. They don’t keep happening after, and even before that, it’s not memories.”

Nile furrowed her brow. “Has anyone else had Quynh’s dreams? From the water?”

Joe pursed his lips. “For a time, yes. Andy wanted to find her.”

“And now?”

“She’s dead,” Andy’s voice came from the threshold of the bedroom. “So let’s stop talking about it.”

-

Not talking about Quynh didn’t stop memories from flooding into Nile’s dreams every night. The more jobs they did, the worse it got, until Nile was fairly certain that she hadn’t had a dream that wasn't one of Quynh’s memories for months.

“We’re going to talk about this,” Nile said, fixing Andy with a look of steely determination after Joe and Nicky had gone to bed.

Andy snorted. “No, we most certainly are not going to talk about it.”

“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

“Sure I do, not that hard to tell what you want to talk about.”

Nile raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you not just a little bit curious about why I suddenly have Quynh’s memories in my head? She could be alive--she could be out there right now.”

Andy slammed her hand against the table with so much force that Nile felt like jumping out of her skin.

“Quynh is dead,” she repeated, before she let out a sardonic laugh. “My past doesn’t mean anything, and I would really appreciate it if you stopped going through it.”

Nile furrowed her brow. “Do you think I’m honestly trying to have these dreams on purpose? They just happen, and I don’t know why they happen.”

Andy reached for the vodka on the table, taking a long swig before she scrubbed a hand over her face. “How do you know they’re Quynh’s memories?”

“I just...do, I guess. They’re too vivid and real.”

Andy let out a long sigh and leaned back in her chair. Nile’s gaze stayed on her for a beat too long, unable to stop herself from wondering what it would be like to be with a woman who was once worshipped as god.

“We don’t have each other’s memories.”

“Yeah I know, that’s what Nicky said.”

“You asked Nicky about this? Fuck,” Andy grumbled and took another long swig from the bottle.

“Well who else am I supposed to talk to?” There was a note of venom in her tone–she knew it was the right thing for her family to believe she was dead, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t wake up every day wondering about her mother and brother. “Not to mention you’re--”

“--I’m what?” Andy snapped.

“I just want to help you. And you push me away.”

“Are you talking about Bangkok or Tegucigalpa?”

“Both.”

Andy sighed. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, kid.”

“So?”

Andy closed her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m just tired. And if you’re having these dreams or whatever, these memories, maybe it’s just better that you forget about them.”

Nile bit her lip. “Why?”

Andy shrugged. “I’ve only got one life left and I’ve spent too long walking this earth to think anything means anything.”  
-

That night, Nile dreamt of a small apartment, cars in the street, and a view of the Eiffel Tower. It was real.

Too real.


End file.
